Downtown jail inmate recaptured after escape

Updated 12:45 pm, Friday, July 18, 2014

Photo: HPD

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Jamon Derrell Walker

Jamon Derrell Walker

Photo: HPD

Downtown jail inmate recaptured after escape

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Investigators are trying to find out how a high-risk, capital murder suspect was able to escape from a Harris County jail downtown early Friday morning. The man was captured a short time later a few miles away.

The incident occurred about 4:30 a.m. at a county jail at 1200 Baker, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland, a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Gilliland said a deputy was escorting several inmates who would be transferred from the jail for medical issues when she spotted another inmate, identified as Jamon Walker, near a secure entryway. She told Walker to stop, but he bolted out of the door.

Gilliland said Walker managed to get several miles away before he was captured in a residential area on Lee near Staples just northeast of downtown. Patrol deputies spotted him and he surrendered without incident. He had removed his jail-issue shirt and tennis shoes but was wearing his orange jail-inmate pants.

Gilliland said Walker was not among the inmates who were being escorted for medical treatment. It's unclear how he managed to find his way unnoticed to the gate, which is a restricted area where inmates require an escort.

Gilliland said the incident is being investigated. Houston police, he added, had no reports of incidents in the areas where Walker was recaptured.

Walker is classified as a high-risk inmate, said Christina Garza, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Sheriff's Office. He is confined to his individual cell 23 hours a day. For one hour each day, Garza added, Walker is allowed out of his cell but is confined in a cell block, which is a secured area. During that time he showers and completes other personal hygiene tasks but he remains in the locked cell-block.

Garza said Walker is only allowed to leave the cell block for court dates, visitations and medical clinic appointments. He must be escorted by a deputy or a detention officer on those occasions. At the time he escaped, Garza added, Walker was not out of the cell block for one of those three approved reasons.

Garza said an investigation is underway to determine how Walker slipped from his cell and cell block. How long that investigation would take is unclear.

"The question is," Garza said, "how was he able to get out of the secure areas he was limited to."

Walker was jailed last year on a charge of capital murder involving the shooting death of Gerald Lynn Johnson, 54, during a robbery. Johnson was found dead July 18, 2013, in the parking lot of a church in South Houston. Walker was accused of shooting Johnson then leaving the scene in Johnson's Mercedes. Police said the gunman was spotted driving the Mercedes the next day and was arrested.